Raijintek Paean Premium ATX Full Tower Case Review
Contents
Nothing could sound much better to those who love liquid cooling than a case that delivers enough mounting space for five triple-fan radiators, and the Paean Premium delivers that feature without even taking up all that much space. Its 12.2” by 18.2” footprint is about three inches wider and six inches less-deep than a typical pedestal server case, and its 25.5” height places it almost perfectly under most desks. Then again, if you put much effort into your build, it would be a shame to hide it under a desk!
We took the unboxing photos before opening the case and then noticed that some of the dust filters had shifted during shipping. We immediately noticed the triple-chamber design with two vent panels below the motherboard chamber and two more in the power supply chamber to the right of it, along with a top-panel radiator mount, all covered in magnetic mesh dust filtering sheets. Tempered glass covers the motherboard chamber on two sides for easy display of internal components.
Raijintek places its Paean Premium front-panel section near the top of the actual front panel for easier reach when used either atop or beneath a desk. It includes a power button, two USB3 Type A ports, a USB3 Type-C port and two audio jacks for traditional headphone/microphone headsets, but it does not include any reset button, power status or hard drive activity LEDs.
The top-panel radiator mount supports triple 120 or dual 140mm fans, but its magnetic sheet filter will end up being wedged between any fans and/or radiators mounted there. Since it would look silly to slap this filter sheet on the outside of the case, we’d recommend mounting any top panel cooling components as exhaust and ditching the filter.
The bottom panel has no dust filter, as its chamber is intended to draw air through filtered fan mounts on its sides.
Dropping the right side panel, we noticed that its filters are magnetically secured without any tabs to keep them sliding around. Keeping them from shifting is as easy as not dropping the case. The lower panel filters are large enough to make contact with the edges of those panels to prevent shifting.
Even though we noticed that the front panel was easily removed, we avoided doing so in the above photo for fear of damaging it. That was a silly concern as the case turned out to be far more robust than we could have ever imagined. Inside we find enough space for an XL-ATX motherboard up to at least 11” deep, a removable triple-120mm fan mount on each side of the lower chamber, a 3×120/2x140mm mount between the motherboard and power supply chamber, and a removable tray that can hold two 3.5” or two 2.5” drives while also acting as a cable management device.
The Paean Premium drive tray supports two 3.5” or 2.5” drives on top and has two power supply cable passages underneath: Even though the design would have allowed two 3.5” drives to be fit on top and two 2.5” drive to be fit underneath at the same time, the upper access hole’s position and the lack of any access hole in the center prevents additional 2.5” drives from being used there. This observation falls under the category of missing features that may not be required, but could have been added for free.
A removable divider between the upper and lower chambers features a 3x120mm/2x140mm mount that’s partially covered by a removable coolant line guide. Also seen here is the single thumbscrew that releases the slide-up face panel, as well as the vertical radiator mount’s 1.5” setback from the motherboard tray. Given the amount of setback and the remaining space between it and the right side panel, it would be possible to place a radiator behind a 13”-deep dual-socket motherboard and still place fans on the opposite side of this mount, though doing so might just be a little silly.
| Raijintek Paean Premium | |
| Type | Full-Tower |
| Motherboard Support | XL-ATX, ATX, Micro ATX, Mini ITX |
| Max Motherboard Depth | ~11″ (280mm) with radiator installed |
| Dimensions (HxWxD) | 648x310x463mm |
| Air Cooler Clearance | 170mm |
| Card Length | 430mm rated, 462mm clearance |
| Power Supply Format | PS/2 (Full ATX) up to 9.1″ (231mm) |
| Weight | 29 lbs (13.2kg) |
| External Bays | X |
| Internal Bays | (2) 3.5″, (2) 2.5″ |
| Card Slots | 8 |
| Ports/Jacks | (1) USB3 Gen2 Type-C, (2) USB3 Gen1 Type A, Headphone/Mic |
| Other | Dual ‘360mm/240mm’ Internal Radiator Mounts |
| Included Fans | X |
| Front Fan Mounts | X |
| Rear Fan Mounts | X |
| Top Fan Mounts | 2x 140mm / 3x120mm |
| Bottom Fan Mounts | X |
| Side Fan Mounts | Dual 2x 140mm / 3x 120mm |
| Top Rad. Clearance | 94mm |
| Front Rad. Clearance | X |
| Front Filter | X |
| Top Filter | Mesh Sheet |
| Bottom Filter | Mesh Sheet |
| Damping | None |
| Price | $330 |
